


to watch you fall

by finalizer_archive



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: F/M, once again this is not a pretty relationship nor is this a happy fic, pre-ASOUE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-22 08:57:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17659739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer_archive/pseuds/finalizer_archive
Summary: A night never ended well when it began with a few drinks too many in an overcrowded bar, and the start of a fiery argument in the backseat of a taxi.





	to watch you fall

**Author's Note:**

> hmm so basically i wanted to write a big fight between them and maybe hurt myself in the process, and guess what? it worked!

A night never ended well when it began with a few drinks too many in an overcrowded bar, and the start of a fiery argument in the backseat of a taxi.

It wasn’t like he hand-picked his words to deliberately get on Esmé’s nerves. One shot followed another, then a whiskey followed a couple of the pink fruity _whatevers_ she had ordered, and then his brain wasn’t operating at top capacity anymore. And then one snide comment followed another, Esmé’s annoyance was met with his dismissive nonchalance and before he knew it, she was disappearing into the crowd, heading towards the exit without sparing him another glance.

He slammed a wad of crumpled bills onto the counter and didn’t hang around for the bartender to holler at him that he was half the tab short.

She stood outside the bar, her fur coat draped over her shoulders. She wasn't mad enough to ditch him and call her driver, and that was a good sign. But then she sniffed at him, whether in disdain or from the cold wind biting at her face he couldn’t tell, and turned on her heel to approach the nearest taxi.

She didn’t argue when he slid into the backseat beside her; but when she gave the driver her address she wordlessly turned her head to watch the streets passing by in a blur through the window. Of course, he couldn't stand the damn silence, and opened his mouth before his brain had the chance to remind him that was a terrible idea, and within moments they were shouting again.

There were usually a few ways it could go from there. They could part ways, and fume in silence for days or even weeks, until they got bored and gravitated back towards each other. They could duck into the nearest liquor store on their way to Esmé’s apartment and afterwards arrive at a drunken compromise, in bed, tangled in the sheets. Or, they could continue their bickering in the middle of the street while the taxi drove off into the dark, and then during the elevator ride upstairs, and further still while Esmé struggled to force her key into the lock.

Predictably, it was not a night for amicable decisions.

When the lock finally gave way, Esmé shoved on the door like it was solely responsible for her displeasure and pushed inside. He followed suit, and slammed it closed behind himself with a careless swing of his arm. He wasn't sure why he’d followed her home, if their sole intent was to scream at each other until their voices grew hoarse and a fair amount of breakable objects ended up thrown and smashed to bits.

Counterpoint, he wasn’t thinking straight. He could do or say whatever he wanted and blame it on the alcohol. And, _fuck_ , did he have a lot of things to say.

“And that’s not to mention, Esmé, dearest,” he went on, “that we had a plan for this. A surefire, flawless, foolproof, utterly infallible plan. One that didn’t involve you accepting a marriage proposal from a man you just met.”

Esmé whirled around to stare him down. She was at the opposite end of the hallway, shrouded in shadows. “ _He_ met _me_. I made that happen, I orchestrated it. It has nothing to do with you, Olaf. It’s not real, and it means nothing, and you shouldn’t be wasting your breath bitching about it.”

With that, she turned the corner and disappeared into the next room. A light clicked on and he could hear her throwing off her coat and handbag. Her damn heels clacking on the hardwood flooring felt like knives in his brain; everything she did was so fucking irritating, and he didn’t understand how she was capable of souring his mood so quickly. They’d been having a great time. The drinks had been overpriced but stronger than they tasted, which was good, and he’d snuck his hand below the countertop and over Esmé’s thigh, inching higher, below her shimmery dress. She’d fixed him with a look that screamed _I dare you_ and motioned to the bartender for a refill like the fingers between her legs weren’t affecting her in the slightest.

They’d been having a great fucking time.

He snarled under his breath and toed his shoes off before heading down the corridor, into the living room where Esmé had vanished off to.

“I don't see why it warrants a marriage,” he demanded, crossing the threshold. “There are easier ways to get our hands on the tunnel. A complex scheme is better, because it’s untraceable. But you’ve never had the patience for letting things play out because you’re a spoiled bitch, and when you want something you want it then and there.”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” she snapped. “Don’t you fucking talk to me like that.”

She was standing across the room from him again, near the dresser where she’d tossed her bag. Her coat hung lopsidedly over the edge of the sofa beside it, halfway to the floor.

He leaned against the wall. “Then don’t act like one.”

Esmé kicked her heels off with a scornful huff and nudged them to the side, up against the dresser.

She turned her attention to the tray of liquor atop it, reaching for an unmarked decanter of something or another. She probably didn’t care what was inside, so long as it drowned out the sound of everything she didn’t want to be hearing.

“Fine, then,” she said. The bottle clinked against the glass as she poured with unsteady hands. “Fire away, easier ways. What are they? And if they’re so damn simple, why have you still achieved nothing?”

“Nothing,” he echoed blankly. Her wording didn’t slip past him either. The _you_ dripped with contempt. Of course _he’d_ achieved nothing, and _she_ was just the best damn thing in the whole world, wasn't she? She wanted everybody to fall to their knees and marvel at how perfect she was, how clever and dangerously witty she could be.

Esmé set the bottle down hard and the glassware atop the dresser rattled. Her back was still turned.

“If I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands we’d be stuck in place, just as we have been for months, Olaf. I don’t see why you’re so obsessed with the details. This is nothing but a convenient arrangement for the greater good.”

“You’re marrying him!”

Esmé tipped her glass back and downed the liquor in one go, then dropped itback onto the tray with just as little regard as she’d had for the decanter. Her movements were still so graceful, so oddly elegant, considering how absolutely wasted she was — how wasted they both were. He had to take into consideration just how distorted his perception was, and that maybe she wasn’t nearly as composed, maybe she felt just as wrecked as he did.

“Why on earth do you care? He’s nobody,” she reasoned. With another inexplicable sniff she turned to him and stared him down with her brow furrowed. “You — _oh_.”

She caught his eye and trailed off. The corner of her lip quirked into a knowing smile. He found himself feeling scrutinized, and not in the same scorching way he felt when she looked at him like she was picturing him with all his clothes off.

She lifted her chin and took a step towards him. Her approach was slow and measured, like an animal circling its prey.

“Olaf, darling, are you jealous?” she asked, not because she wanted a legitimate answer, but because she knew it would kick his fury up a notch. She liked driving him up the wall. She got off on it, the madwoman. Her voice was low and her tone derisive when she continued. “Because he’s filthy rich and _oh, so lovable?_ A nice, proper man who can provide me with a comfortable home and a steady, simple life?”

She took another step forward, and another until they were inches apart. She fixed him with an icy look and he met her eyes, his jaw clenched. It wasn’t like him to keep his temper in check, but he’d be damned if he let her provoke him so easily. He had half a mind to strangle her then and there, but the part of his brain that still functioned reminded him that it was exactly what she was going for — to get a rise out of him and prove just how viscerally she affected him. She always had to be right.

He glared down at her. There was no telling what the fuck she wanted him to do in response. Congratulate her on her new path in life? Fall to his fucking knees and beg her not to marry the guy? He pointedly said nothing.

Esmé breathed out a cruel, humorless laugh and her sweet, patronizing smile suddenly twisted into a snarl.

Her arms snapped up and she shoved at his chest, hard. “You think that’s what I want?” she shouted.

He stumbled back in surprise.

Of course she could still catch him unawares. She wasn’t nearly as predictable as she made herself out to be. She could be chaos incarnate when she put her mind to it, and when he was too far gone to foresee her whims and outbursts.

“You really think that’s what I want? _Who_ I want?” she demanded. “It’s what _needs_ to be done.”

He found his footing and backed away, a single step from the oncoming storm. He wasn’t letting her win. It was a strategic retreat. If she put her hands on him again he didn't trust himself not to hit her back, and he had no doubt she would kill him with her bare hands if he did.

Who fucking cared what her reasons were. She was being ridiculous, she was rushing into something complicated with no way out, no failsafe, no way to know if the means were worth the outcome. Who fucking cared if the fiancé was someone she wanted to fuck or not.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said, controlling his voice in hopes of controlling his frayed nerves.

Esmé’s voice was sharp. “Am I?”

“You are,” he snapped.

A voice in the back of his head piped up then, slipping in a shred of doubt. Maybe she was trying to make a point. Maybe she didn't want to spend the rest of her life, or at the very least a considerable chunk of it, as the trophy wife to some irrelevant goody two shoes. Maybe there was somebody else she cared for above all that. Perhaps it was him. Perhaps what they had was irreplaceable and shouldn't become unraveled by a senseless argument and meaningless marriage — it was just another scheme, in the end.

He stayed quiet for too long, lip curled up in what must have appeared to her as disdain.

She took a breath and her head shook in disbelief. Her tone was dispassionate, and her laugh mirthless. She was utterly finished with him. “It’s so stupid of me to expect you to understand a single word I’m saying. You’re drunk out of your mind. I could stand here and spell it out for you and you’d just blink like an idiot and tell me I’m being foolish all over again.”

That relit the spark. Their disagreements were always like that — ups and downs, occasional intermissions, screaming and then hissed whispers, always leading up to some violent grand finale.

He turned on her, voice raised again. “Oh, I’m drunk? I'm the one who’s overreacting? Who the fuck knows how much shit you’re on right now. Do you even hear yourself? Can you even hear what you’re saying? I don't think so.”

“You don't think,” Esmé echoed, “that’s your problem, darling. You don't think.”

He was reaching the limit of his already generous patience. “You don’t get to say that. You do not get to talk to me like that when you’re the one making impulsive bullshit decisions and fucking ruining everything.”

Esmé’s mouth fell open but the words didn't come. The way her brows creased and eyes narrowed, he couldn't tell if she was hurt, offended, or just plain furious, or perhaps all three wrapped up into a neat little package with a bow on top, a frilly time bomb just waiting to go off.

“I’m doing what has to be done,” she repeated. She was mirroring his previous tactic, keeping her tone level. The way she did it, though, sounded like she was talking down to a child. She was treating him like a fucking idiot. The blood was rushing in his ears and he barely heard her when she went on: “If you weren’t so dead set on criticizing me, or making yourself out to be some sort of victim, you’d see it’s a good plan with profitable long-term advantages, unlike every fucking idea you’ve had over the last few years!”

“We were supposed to work together,” he steamrolled on. He explicitly ignored everything Esmé had said. He wasn't playing the victim, she was being a bitch. “And you are distracting yourself with this unnecessary side plot. You're overcomplicating everything, and you’re losing sight of what’s really important. And don't bullshit me it’s for the greater good — you’ll be living it up in your fucking glorious new apartment, mingling with high society, never having to work a day in your life. You poor fucking baby, what a sacrifice you’re making.”

“Would it fucking kill you to tell me what’s really on your mind?” Esmé snapped. “You’re trying to tear me to shreds but you clearly haven’t touched on what’s really bothering you.”

“You are.”

Esmé snorted. “How mature.”

“Oh, because you’re so much better?” he drawled. “Marrying a guy you’ve known for a few days?”

“I don’t love him!” Esmé shouted.

“I don’t fucking care if you love him!” he shouted back. It was a lie. He was relieved, not that the feeling truly, properly registered amidst the muddled chaos of his mind. The nauseating thought that maybe she was no longer _his_ had been nagging at him ever since he first saw the diamond ring on her finger.

But he couldn't let her know that. “All I know is that you’re getting distracted. And you know what happened last time we let everything spiral the slightest bit out of control. You remember, don’t you?”

It was a low blow, to redirect attention to a different issue, but the topic was bound to hurt him more than it hurt her. Still, it had to be done, or they’d drone on about her fucking fiancé for hours until one of them went over the edge and murdered the other.

Esmé’s expression grew cold. “Oh, is that my fault now, what Beatrice did? Is that all my bloody fault?”

“Don’t be an insufferable bitch. I said _we_. Don’t twist my fucking words.”

“Did I not tell you to never call me that again? Were you listening to a single word I said, or did it all go in one ear and out the other?”

Her eyes were wide and her expression bordering on manic. He could hear her breath from where he stood, loud and erratic. The way this worked, one of them always snapped and ended up spitting out something vicious, cruel and unwarranted, a final jab to end that particular screaming match, and possibly their relationship, however temporarily. This time, it was bound to be her.

She lowered her tone and hissed, “And don’t assume I don’t have everything under control. I know better now.”

“Of course you do,” he said, patronizing.

“I can’t believe I’m standing here letting you throw that in my face. That had nothing to do with us. It was all Beatrice. My only mistake was to look the other way for too long and trust her not to stab me in the back, which hardly applies to this situation.”

He barked out a sharp, nasty laugh. “And what happened afterwards, was that entirely her fault too?”

Esmé twitched, an involuntary clench to her jaw like she had something to hide.

He didn't altogether know where he was heading with this, but he’d reached the point where he no longer cared. He wanted to hurt her, he wanted her to shut up and take the blame for something already so that he didn’t have to fucking stand there and waste his breath any longer.

“She threw the dart,” Esmé snapped. There was a defensive edge to her words, however cold and loud she said them.

“And before that?”

Predictably, Esmé lost her cool. “She was going to fucking kill me! Did you expect me to stand there and let her get away with it?”

“She was only going to do that because you threw the first dart, damn it! That’s what I’m fucking talking about! You don't think. You do everything based on nothing but instinct and some convoluted, reckless decision making process, and people get fucking killed because of it!”

“Don’t you fucking dare turn that around on me, Olaf. Beatrice stole from me and I was only making sure she got what was coming to her. For crying out loud, it was a warning shot!”

“Oh, good for you! How fucking spectacular! _Hers wasn’t!”_

“That has nothing to do with me!”

“Well, maybe if her goddamn dart had hit its target my father would still be alive, and I wouldn't have to stand here listening to you bitch at me!”

Esmé physically recoiled like he’d struck her. Conflicting emotions flicked over her face in rapid succession: offense, pain, confusion, outrage, and back to pain. Her brows furrowed and her lips moved to form words but the sounds never came. Her breath came in short gasping spurts, like every part of her was malfunctioning and shutting down.

“You — ” she choked out. Her voice was impossibly small, barely audible, when an eternity passed and she finally said, “So you wish I was dead?”

That jerked him back to reality. The blood rushing in his ears fell silent so abruptly his head spun.

“I — ” he started, and then it registered with him exactly what he’d said, what the implication behind his words had been, and that Esmé was looking at him like she’d never seen him before in her life. She sniffed again, and this time it was to force back tears.

“No. _No_ ,” he said forcefully, “that’s not what I meant.”

He'd been so convinced that Esmé was going to lose control and lash out with something unexpectedly vile that he entirely missed the moment he did that very thing.

“It seems like that’s exactly what you meant,” Esmé said. Her voice wavered. She was trying to sound detached, like she was well above taking shit from him but her fingers trembled when she reached up to brush a wisp of hair from her face, and her eyes were glassy and reddened.

“Esmé — ” he tried, and took a hesitant step towards her, hands itching to stretch in her direction.

“ _Don’t_.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Do not touch me.”

He took another step forward and this time Esmé took a frantic step back.

“Esmé, listen to me — ” he reasoned, and held out his arm as if to talk her down. She violently flinched away.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she repeated. She shook with the force of biting out the words, and the unshed tears spilled over, streaming down her face.

“That’s not what I meant. It came out wrong. I was — I’m sorry. Baby, I'm so sorry.”

Esmé swallowed audibly. She was visibly struggling to even out her breathing, chest heaving with the effort.

“Then what did you mean?” Her voice took on a hysterical note. “Tell me what the fuck you meant, if not that.”

Within seconds the whole night, the whole argument suddenly meant nothing. Because he’d crossed the line and delivered a blow that wasn’t meant for her, or anybody else. Nobody deserved to have something like that thrown in their face. But he’d thrown it. And she was standing there, in tears, like she couldn’t believe he too had betrayed her.

“Nothing,” he insisted. “It meant nothing. We’re — I’m drunk. It was in the heat of the moment. It didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t thinking.”

The irony hung heavy in the air. He pointedly ignored it in favor of addressing the new problem at hand.

Esmé wouldn’t stop shaking. She was no closer to calming down, despite her best attempts.

He stepped closer again. She jerked but didn’t immediately scurry away. 

He lowered his tone to make it more placating, to come off as harmless, perhaps even comforting.

“It’s not your fault, Esmé. I promise you I don’t think it’s your fault. Beatrice threw the dart.”

She pressed her lips together hard to suffocate her unbidden tears. She only ever saw her volatile nature as weakness when she broke down and displayed the slightest inkling of vulnerability. She despised that.

“But if I hadn’t thrown the first one — ” she countered.

“Doesn't matter,” he assured her. “You didn’t kill him.”

“I could’ve — ” she started, and her voice broke.

He quickly closed the distance between them and tugged her into an embrace before she could fully comprehend what was happening. He wrapped one arm around her waist, settling his hand on the small of her back, the other at the back of her head to hold her close.

She tensed against him and choked out a watery sigh that might’ve been a sob.

He nudged her head forward until it was tucked under his chin.

For the longest moment she didn’t respond, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. Her uncertainty hung heavy between them, and he swore he could hear the gears turning in her brain — he hadn’t meant it, he hadn't realized what the fuck he’d been saying when the words tumbled out, but she had no way of knowing that for sure.

Finally she drew a deep, shaky breath, and her hands went up to desperately grab at the back of his shirt. She held him like he would change his mind and push her away after all, scream at her again, tell her it _was_ her fault, and that he truly, honestly blamed her for everything that’d happened.

He’d done too much damage for her to buy sugar coated words. He opted for gestures instead.

The hand he had nestled in her hair moved, stroking meaningless patterns in an attempt at consolation; he bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead, and felt her arms tighten around him in response.

“I'm sorry,” he repeated.

He so rarely meant it when he said those words. More often than not he tossed them around to shut somebody up or alleviate their fury to get his way. They were a means to an end, not a genuine sentiment. And yet when Esmé trembled against him, nausea roiled in his stomach, because it was his fault. He did this to her. And it scared him how much he hated that.

“Come on,” he said. “Come here.”

He pulled away and Esmé’s hands urgently caught in the fabric of his shirt to keep him from leaving. He pried them away as gently as he could and took them in his own.

He tilted his head in the direction of the sofa behind her to get his point across without using too many words. Anything he said would be used against him, and the slightest miscalculation would undeniably set her off again.

The influx of conflicting emotions was giving him vertigo, and he wanted to stay with her but didn’t trust his legs not to give out underneath him.

Esmé set her jaw and hesitantly met his eyes. Hers were red rimmed and unfocused and he had to force himself not to look away. They were alike in that way, assuming that any sort of emotional frailty was an unforgivable weakness, an unfixable flaw of character.

“Come on,” he repeated numbly.

He didn’t drag her along but she came anyway, her fingertips brushing his like they were holding hands, but only barely.

The sofa was a few steps away and he sat down hard, his limbs all too heavy from exhaustion and inebriation. Esmé’s hands were still in his, her fingers resting against his palms, but she didn’t sit. She stood over him, looking at him with a shadow of a frown, like she was trying to decide if he was worth the heartache, or if pulling away and disappearing off to her bedroom was a more sensible option.

He tugged at her fingers, almost playfully, in an attempt to lighten the mood. So what if he’d been the one to singlehandedly destroy it in the first place. They could flip flop like that on occasion, from screaming to laughing to fucking and back again within minutes, and he figured it was perfectly reasonable to test the waters and see if this was one of those times. He didn’t think he’d be able to stomach a long, drawn-out conversation about what he’d said wrong and how he promised to never to that again. Sitting in comfortable silence was preferable. It gave them both the chance to cool off, together.

Esmé shuffled infinitesimally closer, and watched him with a blank expression. There was something in her posture that remained tense, but her eyes betrayed nothing. That was when she was the hardest to figure out: when she was visibly upset but not outright angry. He didn’t quite know how to play his cards just then, how to get her to trust him enough to stay.

She abruptly dropped her hands to her sides, and for a split second she looked like she was about to bolt. His heart rate picked up, because maybe he’d miscalculated.

Instead she sat, close enough for him to inwardly sigh in relief, far enough to leave a sizable gap between the two of them. She said nothing, and turned away to stare at the far wall. Her breaths were still shaky, and she held herself completely motionless like she was trying to center herself or, considering she could still be furious, talk herself out of reaching for her heels and plunging them into his chest. She could be unpredictable like that. It was as exhilarating as it was dangerous.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her again, instinctively, in case he hadn’t gotten his point across the first few times.

Esmé glanced at him out of the corner of her eye but didn’t turn. The wall seemed more interesting than the idea of meeting his gaze.

Then she closed her eyes and exhaled, visibly deflating. It didn’t mean she was okay, just that the worst was over. And that was a start.

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

She kept her hands in her lap, her fingers twitching like she was trying to build up the courage to make a sudden decision. Worst case scenario: she came to her senses and ran from him, lest she let herself get hurt again.

He impulsively made to reach for her before she did just that, but she moved first — she picked her legs up off the floor and tucked them beneath herself, and leaned over towards him. She laid her head in his lap, slow and tentative, and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold.

She said nothing, but she didn’t really need to. The way she curled in on herself was protective, almost defensive, but despite it all she was choosing to stay; there existed the slim possibility that she was wiling to forgive him after all.

He stared down at her for a moment, unsure of what to do.

She was giving him the opportunity to make things right. He could try to make amends, however one did that. This wasn’t part of the usual repertoire. Normally, everything would escalate until the tension spilled over and they either broke up or fucked and made up. But now they were both on that wrong side of drunk that was never any fun, and it seemed neither of them had the strength to keep the conflict alive. 

He slipped his hand into her hair, running the pads of his fingers back and forth against her scalp, the way she always did for him when he draped himself over her and demanded affection. Her hair, tousled from the wind outside, fell over her shoulders, catching in the sequins of her dress with every trembling breath. He couldn’t see her face, but he could feel beneath his fingertips, that she was just as weary as him.

He dropped his head back against the cushions. It took the shouting reaching a crescendo and everything abruptly falling quiet for him to realize just how horribly his skull was throbbing.

He briefly contemplated pouring himself another drink to help with the headache, but fortunately his last remaining scraps of sanity assured him that was a dreadful idea.

Still, the silence was getting to him. A few seconds ticked by, then a few minutes. Esmé was motionless beneath him, breathing so evenly now that he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. His fingers stilled, but he kept his hand at the back of her head.

The tension was suffocating him. He picked his head up.

“I — ” he started.

“If you say you’re sorry again, I’ll hurt you,” Esmé muttered. Her tone was quiet but sharp. “You fucked up. I get it.”

She was awake after all, and tossing around threats no less. He felt his lips quirk up ever so slightly into a lopsided smile.

However flippant her words were, they immediately made it feel as though everything had tipped back upright. This was something he was well acquainted with. They never wasted too much time on talking these things out. It was a blessing, because he hated when anyone put his feelings in the limelight.

They didn’t make amends, they moved on. They would hurt each other, and then the next day they would go back to hurting others together. It’d become a well practiced routine, sweeping their more unpleasant episodes under the rug.

Maybe this was enough — to hold her close and reassure her that they were okay.

“I mean it,” he said after a while, because he needed her to know that much.

They could move on and put everything behind them, but it felt wrong to leave things ambiguous for once.

For far too long, Esmé said nothing. Then she moved, and craned her head to peer up at him. Her makeup was runny but her eyes were already dry. She was still completely and utterly indecipherable.

He had the sudden urge to bend down in a complicated maneuver to kiss her, but she turned back around before he could act on it. He kept watching her, waiting restlessly for a follow-up.

“I know,” she finally said.

He exhaled.

Then, “I believe you.”

Everything was always unsteady between them — it’d been that way from the start. But the cracks would deepen if left untended for too long, and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take just yet.

“That’s good,” he said simply. It felt stupid to say so little, but there was hardly a manual with scripts for situations such as these. He meant it, and that was all that mattered in the end. “I’m glad you do.”

This game they were playing with each other, treading on thin ice with no way of knowing when they would fall under, it was never easy, but it was warm and familiar, and as good as it got for people like them. It was in their nature to push their luck and destroy until there was nothing left to destroy, however badly they themselves unraveled in the process.

But as long as it lasted, it was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally inspired by [this text post](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com/post/181672566046/another-thing-about-if-beatrices-dart-was-aimed) but then it took on a life of its own as most of my fics tend to do [shrug emoji]
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/finaiizer) & [tumblr](http://esmesqualor.tumblr.com)


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